The media sphere is shifting quickly to the horror stories of international hacking -- are we on the eve of the next pervasive war?

The Cold War, the War on Drugs, the War on Terror ... we
sure have our share of long pervasive wars don't we?

I'll preface this blog by stating I don't have any personal opinion one way or
another about the current wars. War might not be always a necessity, but
it's a part of Earth life even down to the cellular level.

We're still fighting a war in Iraq and a war in Afghanistan, but the media
spotlight has already lost interest. That has to make someone wonder, “What's
next?” And there’s always been something
next.

There have been a few very important factors in the last few pervasive wars in
North America. The first being that the public did not clearly understand
the risks and factors until told so. Yeah, I saw planes crash into the
magnificent New York skyline, but myself and the near-entirety of the U.S.
population knew nothing about terrorism as a whole before that day.

Ronald Regan's war on drugs was similar: who in the U.S. knew anything about
cartel overloads in South America, willing to suck the life out of millions of
people just to build a bigger, more ostentatious villa in the Colombian
hillside?

"What's next?" I ask. I think, unfortunately, I already know
the answer: the cyberwar. Every day we hear of international governments
hacking each other; or at least they're just now getting caught for doing
so. We have incredible masterminds at the helm of unfathomable networks,
digitally controlling our identities -- many of which don't care who they work
for as long as it pays well.

All it will take is a single catastrophic event at this point, and the media
certainly isn't shy about looking for such a doomsday scenario.
"U.S. Nuclear Labs Hacked," says ABC News today. The staff writer at
ABC probably doesn't realize that Argonne used to host one of the largest U.S.
piracy hubs for the better part of a decade; or that of the tens of thousands
of machines hosted at those labs, several get hacked each day.

Cyberwar, if the politicians ever figure out how to describe to the 80-year-old
voting demographic, is certainly on the agenda. The only thing I can wish
for is that the wheels of progress and essential liberty do not come to a halt
based on the whims of leaders who do not understand the volatile nature of all
things digital.

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BERLIN (Reuters) - U.S. intelligence services were seeking to influence political policy-making with their assessment Iran had halted its nuclear arms program in 2003, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said.

Der Spiegel magazine quoted Bolton Saturday as saying the aim of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), contradicting his and President George W. Bush's own oft-stated position, was not to provide the latest intelligence on Iran.

"This is politics disguised as intelligence," Bolton was quoted as saying in an article appearing in next week's edition.

Bolton described the NIE, released Monday, as a "quasi-putsch" by the agencies, Der Spiegel said.